Just how bad have the last three years been for some Americans? A Fed survey has some brutal data today showing that both median family income and net worth dropped dramatically over the last three years.

The median family net worth dropped a staggering 40% to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007, the Fed said in its Survey of Consumer Finances which is released every three years. The median family income dropped as well from $49,600 in 2007 to $45,800, or a 7.7% drop.

Middle-class families faced the brunt of the declines with those in the 60th to 80th percentile of income seeing a 40.4% drop in net worth from $215,700 to $128,600. Families with a net income in the the 20th to 39.9th percentile of income saw a 35.4% drop in net worth from $39,600 to $25,600.

The Fed's survey, which was conducted in 2010, shows just how badly some Americans were hit by the recession. The daunting figures are the result of one of the worst economic periods the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression. Of course, the net worths of Americans are directly tied to the value of their homes which have sunk dramatically in the period.

From the Fed survey:

Families’ finances are affected by both their own decisions and the state of the broader economy. Over the 2007–10 period, the U.S. economy experienced its most substantial downturn since the Great Depression. Real gross domestic product (GDP) fell nearly 5.1 percent between the third quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, the official period of recession as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. During the same period, the unemployment rate rose from 5.0 percent to 9.5 percent, the highest level since 1983. Recovery from the so-called Great Recession has also been particularly slow; real GDP did not return to pre-recession levels until the third quarter of 2011. The unemployment rate continued to rise through the third quarter of 2009 and remained over 9.4 percent during 2010. The rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U-RS), decreased somewhat over the period from an annual average of 2.8 percent in 2007 to 1.6 percent in 2010.

The survey shows that Americans have been spending the last three years paying down debt. The Fed report notes, "The share of families with any type of debt decreased 2.1 percentage points to 74.9 percent over the 2007–10 period (first half of tables 13.A and 13.B, last column), reversing an increase that had taken place since 2001." In particular, the share of a family's outstanding credit card balances decreased 0.6% over the three-year period.

I’m a deputy editor covering all things Wall Street and Investing. I joined Forbes in 2010. I am fascinated by the financial industry’s power and influence around the globe, and the ingenuity of the people it employs (not so much a fan of the lack of accountability when the...